1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data processing device, a data processing method, and an electronic device, in which character data is converted into image (graphic) data.
In particular, the present invention relates to a data processing device and a data processing method, which facilitate an understanding of an emotion expressed in a data content of, for example, an email, and an electronic device equipped with the data processing device, such as a cellular phone.
2. Description of the Related Art
Examples of an electronic device such as a cellular phone include a device having a function of sending/receiving an email. A body of the email is composed of ordinary character data including alphabet, kanji, hiragana, and katakana characters, and special character data including a pictogram that represents a facial expression. Some pictograms are formed by combining symbols including “(”, “)”, “-”, and “;”. Such ordinary character data and special character data are generally stored in a memory of the cellular phone.
Another example of the electronic device such as a cellular phone is a device having a voice synthesis function of outputting a voice by converting text data composing the body of the email into the voice. The electronic device with the voice synthesis function thus reads aloud the text data, so that the content of the email can be recognized in an audible manner.
Up to now, a mail transmitter/receiver has been proposed, in which image data representing an expression such as happiness, anger, sadness, or pleasure is displayed during transmission/reception of an email (in a standby mode) (see JP 2001-273238 A).
Another conventional technology has been proposed as a face mark inputting device in which image data representing an expression such as happiness, anger, sadness, or pleasure is combined with prepared text data (see JP 10-149433 A). The combination between the image data and the text data is performed according to the following steps. That is, text data that is previously inputted is first analyzed, and word/phrase data including “pleasant” is next extracted from the text data. After that, image data corresponding to the word/phrase data is created, and the created image data is finally inserted into the text data (see paragraphs “0020” and “0021” of JP 10-149433 A).
The body of an email is composed only of ordinary character data and special character data including a pictogram. Therefore, in order to understand the content of the email, for example, an emotion (happiness, anger, sadness, or pleasure) of the sender, the recipient of the email needs to read the body of the received email to a certain extent before grasping the content of the email. In an emergency, it may particularly be hard to convey the emotion of a sender promptly.
Alternatively, the electronic device having a voice synthesis function reads aloud the text data of an email, so that the text data can be recognized in an audible manner. However, it is necessary to listen to the reading voice (email content) before grasping the content of the received email to a certain extent. That is, even in the case of recognizing the content of an email in an audible manner, it may be difficult to promptly understand the emotion of the sender like the case where the recipient himself/herself reads the body of an email.
The configuration of the mail transmitter/receiver disclosed in JP 2001-273238 A is only for displaying image data representing an expression such as happiness, anger, sadness, or pleasure (see FIG. 6 of JP 2001-273238 A) in a standby mode during transmission/reception of an email (see FIG. 13 of JP 2001-273238 A). In addition, according to the mail transmitter/receiver disclosed in JP 2001-273238 A, the image data needs to be created by making a selection from among face parts that are registered in advance (see FIG. 4 of JP 2001-273238 A).
According to the face mark inputting device disclosed in JP 10-149433 A, similarly to the case of creating image data in JP 2001-273238 A, it is necessary to create image data corresponding to word/phrase data including “pleasant” contained in the text data. That is, the mail transmitter/receiver of JP 2001-273238 A and the face mark inputting device of JP 10-149433 A each have an object to create such image data. Therefore, the mail transmitter/receiver of JP 2001-273238 A and the face mark inputting device of JP 10-149433 A each require a memory that stores various pieces of data such as the face parts, and have an increased load of creating the image data placed on a central processing unit (CPU).